Core question

What is the nature of psychiatric disorders? How should they be understood, and in which ways does this change how we diagnose and treat them?

Philosophical-oriented texts

There are multiple possible scenarios about the biological basis of psychiatric disorders that can emerge from GWAS studies: from a complete failure to integrate genetic findings into a coherent picture, to a high coherence where all or most genetic findings map to a single inter-connected biological pathway [@kendler2013] : Kendler2013 - What psychiatric genetics has taught us about the nature of psychiatric illness and what is left to learn

Kendler2016 - The nature of psychiatric disorders

Broad-scope review of important paradigms and new developments in psychiatry. I read mostly about deinstitutionalization : Stein2022 - Psychiatric diagnosis and treatment in the 21st century, paradigm shifts versus incremental integration

Weak theories

We fail to properly test theories, so they tend to fade due to lack of interest rather than being disproven : Meehl1978 - Theoretical Risks and Tabular Asterisks, Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the Slow Progress of Soft Psychology

Formal theories help specify critical aspects of our verbal theories. With better theory development we will approach more of a cumulative science rather than each scientist having their own favorite explanation: Robinaugh2021 - Invisible Hands and Fine Calipers, A Call to Use Formal Theory as a Toolkit for Theory Construction

Critique of DSM/ICD paradigm

Diagnosis of psychiatric disorders relies on phenomenology in the current DSM and ICD systems, but the categories are likely not discrete but rather represent underlying continuous traits where thresholds are needed to distinguish ill from well [@hyman2021] : Hyman2021 - Psychiatric disorders, grounded in human biology but not natural kinds

Symptom reduction for specific mental disorders as classified in the DSM and ICD systems have been the dominant therapy target, but other types of outcomes (for example, quality of life, mechanisms of action, economic outcomes) should be considered [@cuijpers2019] : Cuijpers2019 - Targets and outcomes of psychotherapies for mental disorders, an overview

Borsboom2018 - Brain disorders Not really Why network structures

Engel1977 - The need for a New Medical Model A Challenge for Biomedicine

Psychiatric diagnoses are not separated by natural boundaries and the pathophysiology is not well understood, thus they are not diseases in the strict sense. However, psychiatric diagnoses are still useful in everyday clinical practice because they hold information about symptoms and treatment response [@jablensky2016] : Jablensky2016 - Psychiatric classifications, validity and utility